Friday, September 13, 2013

The appeal of male dominance

This research examined the relative sexual attractiveness of individuals
showing emotion expressions of happiness, pride, and shame compared
with a neutral control. Across two studies using different images and
samples ranging broadly in age (total N = 1041), a large gender
difference emerged in the sexual attractiveness of happy displays:
happiness was the most attractive female emotion expression, and one of
the least attractive in males. In contrast, pride showed the reverse
pattern; it was the most attractive male expression, and one of the
least attractive in women. Shame displays were relatively attractive in
both genders, and, among younger adult women viewers, male shame was
more attractive than male happiness, and not substantially less than
male pride. Effects were largely consistent with evolutionary and
socio-cultural-norm accounts. Overall, this research provides the first
evidence that distinct emotion expressions have divergent effects on
sexual attractiveness, which vary by gender but largely hold across age.

The key phrase, which most intelligent women manifestly fail to understand is "divergent effects". That which works on women does not work the same way on men, at least not for the most part. Submission and agreeableness appeal to men while women find such characteristics contemptible. Dominance and confidence appeal to women while men find them off-putting.

This is where solipsism is particularly damaging to women, as it leads them to consistently deceive themselves concerning their own appeal and mislead them concerning their optimal course of action. And it's also why deltas and gammas consistently find themselves getting the short stick, because they keep erroneously assuming that their selfless acts of service and slavish devotion are make them more attractive to women rather than actively turning them off.

There are always exceptions to the general rule, of course. I don't know if it is related to my sigma status, but I seem to be wired a little bit differently in this one regard. While I quite like happy women and find happy expressions to be attractive, I tend to find haughty and arrogant women to be the most superficially attractive. I don't actually like their personlities, I'm just drawn to the way they look. Perhaps it is the cruelty aspect seeking to find a justifiable target, or perhaps it is just indicative of a natural inclination towards conflict and chaos.

Who knows? As I've said before, sigmas are weird. I suspect I was rather fortunate to find Spacebunny, as she looks like a haughty ice queen, complete with a grey-eyed death stare, but her personality is inclined towards the quirky, happy, and funny.

Hm, this explains some things. I have been on a few dates where the woman could not say anything interesting or was sortof shy. Sometimes I would try and be very warm (friendly) and happy (tell jokes) to try and break the ice in these situations to welcome her into a discussion but this has never actually gotten good end results.

The strange thing here is that if you are happy and welcoming to a woman she is the same back to you and this could lead one to think that there is also attraction due to that.

So perhaps a good bottom rule would always be to not put much effort into anything with women you barely know, even with something as simple as having a conversation, no good can come from it.

Vox, would you say sigmas generally tend to be more introverted while alphas tend to be more often than not, extroverted?

In general, yes. But be careful; introverts are no more sigmas than extroverts are alphas. There are, logically, a very limited number of socio-sexual winners. Because they are more introspective, introverts are very inclined to try to redefine things in their favor so as to head off any feeling that they have to change their attitudes or behaviors.

I recall, in particular, one IT guy asking about the concept of a "stealth alpha", which is almost a complete contradiction in terms.

Sean Connery probably put it best in "The Rock" when he said "winners fuck the homecoming queen." Not that a man can't aspire to whatever he wants to be; human beings are malleable and the will to power is real. But for most men, they are best advised to first excise negative behaviors and then work on moving a step forward.

Simply calling yourself Mr. Super Alpha Sigma Loverman is unlikely to accomplish much if you're sitting at home alone on Friday nights reading comic books because you think women aren't worth it. No disrespect to MGTOW, it is a valid choice. But sociosexual dominance it is not.

I agree that the shame results are interesting, at least until you read the full study. They have numbers to support shame being more attractive than neutral to both genders, but they admit in the paper they have no idea why. The actual picture used for shame came from UC davis and is basically looking at your feet with a neutral expression. It could equally be interpreted as embarassment, intimidation or thoughtfulness. Any coloring of the cheeks are hidden by shadows (it looks like the photos were taken with overhead light). Hell, the guy/gal could be looking down at his/her iPhone under the table.

Vox, would you say sigmas generally tend to be more introverted while alphas tend to be more often than not, extroverted? Just something I was pondering recently.

I think the difference isn't so much introversion vs extroversion as it it different prefernces for depth vs breadth of dominance. Both Alphas and Sigmas seek to exert dominance over their surroundings, but Alphas will compromise the depth of dominance in order to gain greater breadth, while Sigmas make the opposite tradeoff.

What I mean by compromise is that in order to exert wider dominance, you need to have minions. And if you want to exert really wide dominance, you need Lieutenants who are able to lead their own minions (e.g. you need other Alphas). To attract and hold those followers, you have to make some concessions to them, even if it's just the small concession of you spending your time helping them organize their job.

The Alpha is the CEO of a company with lots of employees and a handful of ambitions VPs he has to wrangle and has merged much of his fate with that of the people he is leading. The Sigma is the consultant who can walk whenever the situation looks less promising.

Possibly one of the problems in corporate America is too many Sigmas were installed as CEOs.

I'm confused over this Greek typing system. What would you call a man who dominates whatever spheres he wants to dominate through stealth and leaves those he doesn't care about alone? This man I refer to REFUSES to play white knight, although he seems good-natured and placid on the outside. I like to call him a sneaky, quite annoyingly loveable, and frustrating alpha, but maybe I don't understand the typology.

Oh. The man I'm thinking of (my husband) is 100% a sigma. That explains a lot, especially why he's so frustrating at times--I had him typed as an alpha because he's dominant and contemptuous. He certainly operates outside the social system, though. Interesting typology. It explains the social world for gender and personality combined, rather than simply personality. The MBTI is very useful for personality, but doesn't explain the inherent differences in male vs female counterparts to the same personalities. The institute has, however, published useful statistics, demonstrating where the majority of men and women fall on the spectrum of personality traits.